LOST: Last Pre-Strike Episode Not So Striking

Last night’s episode of LOST was the last we’ll see until April 24. And it was the last written before the infamous strike. Will there be a difference between pre-and post-strike shows? We can only hope so, as the “Meet Kevin Johnson” episode yesterday felt rushed and ultimately unsatisfying.

The episode takes place almost entirely in flashbacks, a trademark of the series. The flashbacks, which reveal critical stories from characters’ pasts, have been an easy way for viewers to learn more about characters and their motivations in the present. But some episodes, like last nights’, seem to be nearly entirely flash-backs, making it feel contrived and hard to jump back into the present and still remember what’s happening. Combine it with the innovative use flash-forwards (which happened in last week’s show) and you’ve got a recipe for confusion in an already complex TV series. Some TV shows and movies (Tarantino’s Kill Bill and his inspiration Kung Fu) do flashbacks seamlessly. But it seems to me, when flashbacks start to take up more than 70 percent of an episode, you’re asking for trouble.

In last night’s flashback, I mean episode, the story of Oceanic flight 815 survivor Michael (aka Kevin Johnson) was interesting, since he was the first Lostie to make it off the island. But it wasn’t nearly as fascinating as another character’s glossed-over revelation that the alleged remains of Flight 815 found at the bottom of the ocean, were, in fact, planted. But by whom is still a mystery: Bad guy Ben’s henchmen say it’s industrialist Charles Widmore.

But would Widmore really put his company’s real name on a purchase order to buy the same model of plane that crashed? And could a Boeing 777 commercial airliner really cost only $450, as the receipt indicates? To me, that enters the realm of fantasy more than the idea that busy businessman Widmore took 300+ bodies from a Thai cemetery, put them in a plane, and shoved them into the ocean, all so he could hide an island with special powers from the rest of the world.

Another unsatisfying detail of last night’s installment was the perfunctory shooting of Danielle, mother of bad guy Ben’s daughter, and Karl, boyfriend of said daughter, just before the episode ended. One can only hope the April post-strike episodes will be a bit tidier, since writers got some, er, rest during the five-months they weren’t working.

Photo courtesy ABC

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